This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

You can never have enough tools. The more tools you have at your disposal, the more options you have for constructing your
job. Just the other day, Matt was at The Home Depot considering what tools were missing from his collection—tools that would
make his life easier. You’re probably expecting me to cleverly relate this to using Illustrator’s tools, but I really wasn’t
planning to. I just wanted to talk about our fascination with power tools and the tools we hope to get someday. In fact, just
in case you’re feeling generous, I can happily provide our wish list of dream tools. Meanwhile, I guess we’ll have to make
do with this collection of tips on using Illustrator’s tools to create stuff (as I imagine, I can hear the sweet sound of
a radial saw and smell the aroma of freshly cut pine).

Photo Inside of Type

To fill text with a photo and keep the text editable, place an image into Illustrator (File>Place), then create some text
with the Type tool (T) and position it on top of the photo. With the Selection tool, select both the photo and the type, and
from the Object menu, select Clipping Mask>Make, or press Command-7 (PC: Control-7). (In our example, we added a stroke by
selecting the text with the Selection tool and changing the Stroke color in the Toolbox to black to make the type easier to
see.) Use the Type tool to edit the text or the Direct Selection tool (A) to move the photo. To cancel the effect completely,
select the photo and text, then go back to the Object menu and choose Clipping Mask>Release. Let’s review the most important
aspect of this technique: The masking object (in this case, the text) needs to be on top.